Melville and the Art of Satire: Perspective Through Parody and Caricature
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1979 Melville and the Art of Satire: Perspective Through Parody and Caricature. Shannon Louise Antoine Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Antoine, Shannon Louise, "Melville and the Art of Satire: Perspective Through Parody and Caricature." (1979). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 3323. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/3323 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. 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ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND T92195J ANTOXNO SHANNON LOUISE1 . , I MELVILLE AND THE ARt OF. 8ATIREI PERSPECTIVE THROUGH! PARODY AND CARICATURE. THELOUI8IANA STATE UNIVERSITY AND AGRICULTURAL! AND MECHANICALCOL.# PH.0.» 1979 COPR. 1979 ANTOINE. SHANNON LOUISE International 300 n . z e e b r o a d , a n n a r b o r , mi 48io6 © 1979 SHANNON LOUISE ANTOINE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MELVILLE AND THE ART OP SATIREj PERSPECTIVE THROUGH PARODY AND CARICATURE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Shannon Louise Antoine M.A., University of New Orleans, 1973 May 1979 ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to thank Dr. Darwin H. Shrell, Dr. James L. Babin, and Dr. Jack Gilbert for their assistance in the preparation of this work. CONTENTS Introduction...............................................1 Chapter 1. Typee, Omoo, and Mardi....................... 25 Chapter 2. Redbum, White-Jacket, and Moby-Dick.........88 Chapter 3. Pierre.......................................1^3 Chapter The Short Fiction and Israel Potter........182 Chapter 5* The Confidence-Man.......................... 229 Conclusion............................................... 287 Selected Bibliography................................... 29^ Vita..................................................... 307 ABSTRACT Throughout his fictional works, Melville makes extensive and varied use of satiric techniques. In particular, he is a skillful practitioner of the methods of imitative satire, parody and caricature, which become important narrative tools in virtually every novel and short story he produces. It is possible to trace the development of an increasingly complex approach to satire in the canon of Melville's fiction. In his earliest works, Melville adopts the traditional goals and methods of satire: he exposes vice and folly in the world outside of his fic tion and thereby suggests a need for various reforms. In Typee and Omoo, Melville demonstrates the failings of his own culture by contrasting it with primitive societies which do not share its weaknessess, and in Mardi, the best illustration of his use of the traditional methods and purposes of satire, Melville develops elaborate parodies of his society by presenting to his reader a "fantastic voyage" into a world which is a travesty of his contemporary world. But attacks on abuses in the world outside the novel represent only one possible variety of satiric methodology: increasingly in later novels, Melville's satire becomes more complex. Though iv it is still possible to find occasional attacks on specific abuses in these later works, satiric techniques more often become narrative tools used by Melville to manipulate his reader's reactions to the characters and events he presents. In the sea novels, Melville uses satiric techniques to demonstrate the effects of evil in the world: in R e d b u m , a youthful protagonist confronts the problem of the existence of that evil, and Melville controls the responses of his reader to that character and that evil by mocking the character's naivete; in White-Jacket, Melville uses the mock heroic as a way of demonstrating the failure of heroism in a brutal, man-of-war world; and, in Moby-Dick, Melville presents an extensive examination of man's role in the universe through burlesques of several Biblical paradigms which serve as a key to understanding man's limitations and lack of insight. Critics have focused most on the satiric techniques found in the works which follow Moby-Dick; in these works, satire assumes ever-increasing importance. Melville's short fiction exhibits a wide range of satiric methods and purposes; especially, his three experimental dip tyches demonstrate his elaborate use of structural parody. Israel Potter explores satirically the limitations of American ideals. Finally, Pierre and The Confidence-Man represent Melville's most extensive use of satiric tech niques: in both these novels, Melville explores through satire man's confrontations with the "ambiguities." In Pierre, Melville uses a number of different types of parody, including Christian parody, to present a psycholog ical study of a well-intentioned man who becomes a destruc tive force in the lives of his family and friends because of his inability to grasp these ambiguities; Melville uses satiric methods in this novel to control the reader's sym pathies and responses. In The Confidence-Man, his most extensively satiric work, methods of parody turn an allegor ical fiction into an elaborate literary game through which Melville explores in a mocking way the ethical and moral problems faced by man in an unknowable and "sharkish" world. Thus, throughout his fiction, Melville uses satiric techniques for varying purposes: to expose specific failings, to establish metaphysical dilemmas which confront man in his life, and, especially in his later works, as a literary tool to control rhetorically the reader's responses to characters and events. Satiric techniques are structural and narrative devices as well as thematic devices, employed by a skillful craftsman to present the conflicts faced by man in a complex ambiguous universe. INTRODUCTION Since the revival of the reputation of Herman Melville in the 1920's, it would seem that his fiction has been exam ined from every possible perspective. However, though vir tually every critic has commented in passing on the presence of important satiric elements in Melville's work, his skill ful and often quite complicated craftsmanship in the practice of satiric methods has been for the most part neglected. Even works dealing with related topics, such as Joseph Flib- bert's Melville and the Art of Burlesque and Edward Rosen- berry's Melville and the Comic Spirit, have focused on Melville's intentions in using satire and his various ideas about his society rather than on the actual methods he employs. This lack of consideration given to Melville's skill as a satirist is somewhat surprising, since elements of satire are found in just about all of his short stories and novels, even those not usually regarded as satiric or even humorous. In particular, Melville uses the techniques of imitative satire, parody and caricature, as important rhetorical tools for exposing vice and folly throughout his work. As a literary form, satire has been the subject of a considerable amount of critical supposition and debate. Because of such controversy, it is necessary to begin by 2 establishing some basic characteristics of the "satiric attitude" as found in literature.^ Whatever the theoret- ical problems associated with